California’s budget process has devolved into a bad joke

By Jon Coupal | Let’s face it. California’s budget process has devolved into a bad joke. The record amount of spending coupled with massive expenditures for wasteful, pork-barrel projects is bad enough. But the more insidious problem is the lack of budget transparency. This is not the way it is supposed to be.

As usual, Sacramento politicians are patting themselves on the back for passing an “on time” budget. True, the main budget bill was passed on June 13, two days before the constitutional deadline. But citizens would be mistaken to believe that the passage of the budget bill completes the budget process.

Ever since 2010, it has become common to enact politically motivated
legislation as so-called budget “trailer bills” as a means to avoid
meaningful analysis and public hearings.

What happened in 2010 that caused the budget process to be corrupted
was the passage of Proposition 25, entitled the “On-Time Budget Act of
2010.”

Voters were told three things about Prop. 25: Budgets would be passed
on time; it would increase budget transparency; and that legislators
would forfeit their pay if the budget was not passed on time. All three
were lies. Moreover, because the primary goal of Prop. 25 was to reduce
the vote threshold for passage of the budget bill from two-thirds to a
simple majority, it deprives the minority party of any meaningful
input.